Emo Samurai's Dedicated Campaign Thread, The Next Generation Options

[emo samurai]

ATTEMPTED rapist, and that was while he was too drunk to remember...

Okay, I'll have a hard time justifying him.

[emo samurai]

So... now I have the opposite problem. Originally I was going to make him iredeemably evil, but now I can't sell him. How do I justify his drunken attempted rape?

[hyzmarca]

You don't have to justify it. It was only attempted. No harm, no foul. Most importantly, people do stupid things while they are drunk and often they regret those stupid things. If you Play it right it makes him more human, not less.

Also, watch A Streetcar Named Desire, certain epiodes of Law & Order SVU, or season 6 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Buffy is one of the better examples. Spike has tortured countless people to death in the most horrific ways imaginable, he has attempted to kill the scoobies on several occasions and the only reason he is only fighting the good fight is because a brain implant prevents him from harming humans but wants to kill things. He's still sympathetic to the audience even after he very nearly rapes Buffy. Heck, Willow is still sympathetic to the audience while she is attempting to destroy the earth.

[emo samurai]

I actually thought of Spike when I was wondering how to sell CK to FanGirl.

I guess I'll just have him just look down when he talks about it and not try to justify it to her.

[emo samurai]

I'll have a cult of C.A.T.S. from All Your Base Are Belong to Us for a street religion; they'll even have a shaman in the ranks. They're preparing for the year 2101 when war will begin and all our base will belong to C.A.T.S.

[James McMurray]

You do realize that stopped being funny about 6 months before it existed?

[emo samurai]

No it DIDN'T!!!!

How do I get pirates and ninjas to fight each other?

[emo samurai]

Dude, I sent Randy an e-mail about my suspicions that he was a poster here because of the general crankiness around here, and he posted it on his livejournal. You can read the ensuing discussion and my response to it; it's very awesome.

[James McMurray]

Randy who? I followed the link and it told me nothing. I guess I'm not up on my web-geek-fu.

[emo samurai]

Writer and artist of Something Positive. Yang Gu's my name, and his post is the entirety of the e-mail I sent him.

[James McMurray]

Ah, I suppose that would make sense if I knew what Something Positive was. Is it a web comic?

[emo samurai]

A very popular one that I LOVE. And the random-ass e-mail should be funny by itself.

[Dranem]

If being funny equals the posters making fun of your random-ass-email and making fun of you, then you definately have succeeded. YOU definately were the joke of the day, and probably some are still chuckling about it now...

[Daethanil]

If you want to make him redeemed (somewhat) for it. Then don't let the character hide behind the, "I was drunk..." reason. That reason, and anyone that uses that reason is lying.

When you drink you accept the responsibility for the things you may do under the influence. You can't shrug it off because you were drunk, you made yourself drunk. You put yourself in position to do whatever it is you did. Don't hide behind it like it's a wall. It's a paper-thin transparent shield to the coward behind it.

Have him fess up, accept responsibility. He did what he could to right the wrong. Wether it was accepted or not isn't relevent. And he can still be a real jerk in general, it's just this one thing he regrets.

[emo samurai]

I was definitely going to make him regret everything and just sit there quietly when confronted about it.

[Daethanil]

Good, it would add alot of depth to a character that on the outside appears morally bankrupt - but is given to sudden and self-less acts of true kindness and generosity. Would really make other players wonder about him.

Kind of like the sort that wouldn't bat an eye slicing a man's throat while he slept, but apologizes profusely for bumping into someone in the elevator.

[emo samurai]

When I introduce my character to the campaign in the flesh (The pc's have a chance to talk to him today) it'll be when FanGirl's fixer tells him that his psychiatrist is missing. He went to the park for his weekly session, and he was gone. He'll explain about how he really, really needs it and would gladly pay good money for their help.

[emo samurai]

In yesterday's campaign, FanGirl decided to knock on wood after seeing one of my spirits catch another mugger and hang him by the back of his shirt over a lamp post. I said he was only 10 feet off the ground, but the other two (male) players said he should be higher, since the lethality of a fall should by all rights be assured. FanGirl called Vranton to take the kid down, Vranton refused to even after being offered 1000 :nuyen: , and Johann was called to help out by Vranton. Johann called the Mafia, the Mafia tried to recruit the kid by saying he could come down one of two ways: have his jacket shot so that he falls and breaks his spine, or use their extendable ladder, which they insisted was powered by promises of servitude. The kid took the ladder, Shen got pissed and had his fire spirit engulf the engine of the car, and all the spirits present used Fear power to scare the shit out of the mafia dudes. Vranton's fire spirit Psychokinesed the kid down from the ladder, and the mafia don decided to punish his underlings and call everything off if Shen and Johann paid for the car.

[James McMurray]

You're in serious drek now chummer. Attacking the mob means generally the same thing as attacking the Star. Possible consequences were listed in your blog thread.

I find it hard to believe that the mob would just say "ok, you blew up my car. Pay for it and we're cool." When someone hits your organization you have to hit back, or all sorts of people start having uppity thoughts. They might not kill you, but finding and burning down your house is an option, as is blowing up your car if you have one (preferably while you're inside).

[emo samurai]

Time to learn Detect Explosive.

[James McMurray]

In another game I might let it slide. It would take more than just replacing the car, but it would be doable. I'd probably make them "an offer they can't forget" to do a job as payback, but since this is a GMPC there's really no risk involved in any job they might offer you unless you elect someone else temporary GM for it.

Shadowrun though is different then other games IMO. It's darker, grittier, and more dangerous. The people that rule do it as ruthlessly as they need to in order to keep their kingdoms steady.

[emo samurai]

But the mafia don might be a more reasonable kind of guy, kind of like Uncle Enzo from Snow Crash, or Fisheye, who, while not necessarily reasonable, was very practical and smart when dealing with outsiders of all kinds.

Think of it this way. Four of his stupid, stupid muscle went out on a bullshit opportunity, and they lost the company car. The man has reasonably offered to pay for it with the help from the stupid subcontracted muscle that got them there in the first place. The man meant no harm from it and offered his apologies; if anything, a smart don would want to distance himself somewhat from the idiocy of his underlings and make nice with the strong-willed mage. He's a more old-school kind of don, very courteous like.

[Glyph]

I can see it as just barely plausible - if the don was angrier at his men (for screwing up) that he was with the PCs, he would be forgiving provided that they showed the proper respect and paid restitution (which they were smart enough to do), letting him save face (which is all-important in the shadows).


I don't think there should be zero consequences, though. Even if they lucked out and didn't get on the Don's bad side, they still got his attention. The don might try recruiting one or more of them if he is impressed, or, if they seem to have too much of a social conscience to be part of his organization, he might indirectly clue them in to some suitable targets for their do-good impulses. Things like bunraku parlors, sex-slave kidnapping rings, and so on. All run by his "competitors", of course.

And when the group manages to get in deep trouble with the Yaks or Triads, the kindly don will be there to offer his protection. For a price, of course. That price being either a position in his organization, or a special job that they can do for him - breaking in somewhere and getting a bit of cutting-edge Ares miltech for him, or something similar. And maybe he will mislead them a bit. Like, he might tell them they are destroying a bioweapon, when they are actually destroying a cutting edge antidote that would ruin the profitability of a street drug that he deals in.

[emo samurai]

Sounds like fun.

[emo samurai]

I have a new idea. Shen will have a Free Spirit contact instead of Smokey the Bear, a ranger. She'll be the spirit of the forest next to his house that he awakened from a coma; she went into hiding when the forest was cleared, and my character went in, spied her sleeping in astral space, and poked her. All the natives never did it out of respect and fear, but Shen did it anyway. She helps him with his materials by making nice with the rangers, and when she's bored, she shows him to the awakened wood. His clout with the rangers plus his shaman landlord helped him get his official Salish magical license.

Later on, Vranton will be contacted by her to help free her from her binding to the forest. The reason that Shen or a NAN shaman isn't asked to do this is that they both think of her too much as the spirit of the forest to do anything but unconsciously strengthen the bindings in the metaplane, and she can't trust anybody else not to use the opportunity to learn her true name and bind her. To do this, he'll need to go on an astral quest where he encounters the Knights Who Say Nee. Instead of chopping a tree down with a herring, they'll ask him to bury one under a tree. He'll notice that the physical form of the Knights Who Say Nee are just a skin-deep shell, and that the leader represents the forest spirit. To solve the puzzle, he'll have to realize that this shell is not her desired shell, and that the forest wishes to strike at the knights and yet won't because it cares for them. He can either skin off the knight who says nee, or he could summon a chaos spirit to remove it for the knight. They will then have to do battle with the other knights after the spirit is free, who all have random tribal tatoos and headdresses, meaning that they represent the tradition-bound expectations that keep her marooned in the forest. When the other knights are gone, all the verdant trappings will be gone and she will go free.